Conan turns it up to 11

I’ve always liked late-night talk shows. Johnny, Dave, Jay, Conan — all funny, entertaining stuff. But over the past few years — OK, the past decade — I’ve had trouble staying awake to watch them. Age is not pretty.

So, when the news broke last year that Jay Leno would host a talk show at 10 p.m., a full hour and a half earlier than the norm, I was excited. Finally, a network was adjusting to my schedule.

Alas, Leno’s 10 p.m. show did not draw a large enough audience to satisfy NBC’s prime-time expectations. In that time slot, he often was competing with some high-powered dramas. The show was canceled, and Leno was returned to the 11:30 slot, bumping Conan O’Brien.

With Leno’s failure at 10 p.m., it appears the earlier version of late-night talk is doomed. But what if 10 is just a little too early? Could 11 p.m. be the sweet spot?

O’Brien is going to find out. It was reported today that he has signed a five-year deal to host an 11 p.m. talk show on TBS. The Monday-through-Thursday show will be located in Los Angeles. It’ll start in November.

Eleven is not unprecedented for a talk show, but this will mark the first time that a big-name host will get a half-hour jump on the network competition. (O’Brien is going to push George Lopez, who started an 11 p.m. talk show in TBS a few months ago, to midnight.) How will O’Brien fare on the basic cable channel?

I predict he’ll do extremely well. Here’s why.

First, TBS is almost as widely available these days as the Big Four networks. Almost everybody in the country gets TBS and knows where to find it.

Second, the controversy over Leno’s return to “The Tonight Show” and O’Brien’s resignation actually has expanded O’Brien’s fan base. Although Leno was not permanently damaged by the network’s maneuvering, he was widely cast as the villain in the drama.

Third, O’Brien will not face the same pressure to build and maintain high ratings as he did at the network. TBS likely will be giddy over the ratings boost that O’Brien delivers, and as a result he’ll have the freedom to be as creative as he wants to be with the show.

Fourth, the local news at 11 just doesn’t carry the anticipation that it once did. News is so ubiquitous and easy to access these days that the late local news programs have difficulty telling us anything new. And since you know most of the news already, why not find out how O’Brien’s going to poke fun at it instead? If I were someone for whom local television news ratings were important, I’d be worried about TBS in the fall.

Last but not least, I believe there are many people like me who just can’t stay up until 11:30 every night. If you get up at 5 or 6 a.m., as many of us do, it’s just not realistic to slide under the covers at 12:30 every weeknight.

I’m thinking I’ll regularly watch the first half-hour of Conan. The full hour will be a bit much for me, but at least I’ll be able to enjoy the opening monologue and the first guest.

In the meantime, O’Brien started a sold-out 30-city stage tour this week that includes a May 1 stop at the Palms here in Las Vegas.